Barack Obama campaigned on changing George W. Bush’s “global war on terror” but ended up entrenching extraordinary presidential powers, from warrantless surveillance and indefinite detention to military commissions and targeted killings. Then Obama found himself bequeathing those authorities to Donald Trump, who appears ready to open the throttle on hard-power approaches to fighting terrorism – accepting greater risk of civil-liberties violations at home and civilian casualties abroad. At the same time, Trump’s actions have raised new executive power debates, from his attacks on the free press and his ban on visitors from certain Muslim-majority countries to his push-back against the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author tells insider stories and offers analysis to help make sense of the era of political stress upon the Constitution that the United States – and world – has been living through.